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Legal advice for parents of children with Special Educational Needs or a Disability

Legal advice for parents of children with Special Educational Needs or a Disability.

We can advise in relation to all areas of Special Educational Needs, including;

  • Support at school to meet a child’s Special Educational Needs
  • Obtaining an Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessment
  • The content of an EHC Plan and choosing a school
  • Appeals to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDIST) in relation to all aspects of an EHC Plan, including choice of school
  • Delays in obtaining an assessment or the provision within a child’s EHCP
  • Advice and support to prepare a legal challenge if your child is without education or school transport.

You will receive any urgent advice on the day of the appointment, in some cases you will receive a detailed letter of advice.

If you are appealing to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal you may be entitled to free legal advice depending on your financial circumstances. You can check your entitlement via the gov.uk website.  We are seeing an increasing number of clients who did not know they were entitled to free legal advice.  We have many more enquiries than we can assist with, so we ask that you please check your eligibility for free legal advice before accepting an appointment with us.  

Our students help us to maintain SENDecisions, which is a very useful tool to support you in understanding the law.

You may want to look at the following websites, which can provide very useful information:

We provide four different types of support:

Advice and detailed letter of advice

This is dependent on capacity.  You will receive any urgent advice on the day. You will also receive a detailed letter of advice.

Oral advice

Advice is provided on the day and may be confirmed in a summary email.

SEN appeals service

Support and assistance with appealing to the SEND Tribunal.

Pre-action assistance

Advice about prospects of a legal challenge relating to your child’s education or social care support and, in certain circumstances, writing a letter to the local authority on your behalf.

Open an enquiry

We have no appointments until after Easter and our enquiry form is now closed.

We understand it is an important time for many parents and the following may assist:

  • If you are in receipt of benefits and/or are on a low wage, you may be entitled to free legal advice from a solicitor who is paid by the government to provide free legal advice in your type of case. You can call 0345 345 4 345 to check. Have your income details available and tell them you have an appeal to make to the SEND tribunal.
  • If you need to appeal a final plan, you should prepare the appeal as quickly as possible because an appeal must be made within 1 month of the date of a mediation certificate or 2 months of the date of the letter sending you the final plan, whichever is later. You may find the resources listed elsewhere on our site helpful. Many parents prepare their appeal themselves, just answer the questions as best you can as a parent.
  • If you are want to appeal sections B (special educational needs) and F (special educational provision) you will need to get a mediation certificate first. We often tell parents to consider carefully whether to appeal section B and F because the school named on a plan must be suitable for a child's needs and be able to make the provision set out in section F.  This might be particularly important if you are requesting a special school place. There is no requirement to take part in mediation, but you must contact the mediation adviser and obtain a mediation certificate, and their details will be on the decision letter. Talk to them about whether mediation might be useful. 
  • This is the link to the appeal form you must complete for appeals against an EHC plan: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/642aebe37de82b00123134e0/SEND35_0423_save.pdf

For other types of enquiries, you may find the resources listed elsewhere on this site useful.

We will open our enquiry form again in the coming weeks. 

Further information